The present invention relates generally to style-of-rendition inputting apparatus and methods, and more particularly to an interactive style-of-rendition inputting apparatus and method for entering articulation original music-piece note data by use of icons visually shown on a display screen.
In actually playing a musical instrument, there are employed a variety of styles of rendition, such as xe2x80x9cbend-upxe2x80x9d to raise a pitch of an original tone, xe2x80x9cgracexe2x80x9d to decorate an original tone, xe2x80x9cvibratoxe2x80x9d to vibrate tone and xe2x80x9clegatoxe2x80x9d to smoothly connect successive tones. To realize these styles of rendition, it has been conventional to sequentially write articulation data, indicative of such styles of rendition, into white data (e.g., in the MIDI format) on a style-by-style basis using fine time units. Although the conventional approach would require an enormous amount of time and labor, it can not efficiently synthesize realistic high-quality articulation with efficiency.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a style-of-rendition inputting apparatus and method which, in order to give music performance data a high-quality performance expression (i.e., articulation) just as achieved by a corresponding acoustic musical instrument, can input style-of-rendition information corresponding to a desired articulation style with utmost ease.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a style-of-rendition inputting apparatus and method which propose use of style-of-rendition icons to allow any desired articulation to be imparted with utmost ease and also can effectively display such style-of-rendition icons.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a style-of-rendition inputting apparatus and method which can readily perform control to modify any selected articulation.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned objects, the present invention provides a style-of-rendition inputting apparatus which comprises: a display; an operator device; and a processor coupled with the display and the operator device. The processor is adapted to: show a musical score of a given music piece on the display; select a desired style-of-rendition icon in response to an operation of the operator device and designate a desired icon pasting location on the musical score; and show the selected style-of-rendition icon on the display in corresponding relation to the designated icon pasting location.
According to the present invention, by selecting a style-of-rendition icon corresponding to a desired articulation style and pasting the selected style-of-rendition icon to a desired location on the musical score visually shown on the display, it is possible to input or enter desired style-of-rendition information in corresponding relation to a music performance progression position that corresponds to the pasted location of the selected style-of-rendition icon. This inventive arrangement allows the user to know very easily what kind of style-of-rendition information should be entered in which location of the progressing music performance, so that the user""s entry of the style-of-rendition information can be made in a very simplified manner. Thus, a high-quality performance expression (i.e., articulation), just as achieved by a corresponding acoustic musical instrument, can be easily imparted to music performance data. Of various articulation styles achievable by acoustic musical instruments, some can be appropriately expressed by the traditional or existing music notations and some can""t. The respective figures (including sizes) of the style-of-rendition icons may be chosen as desired. For instance, the style-of-rendition icons corresponding to articulation styles that can be expressed by the traditional or existing music notations may be chosen to be identical or analogous in figure to the traditional or existing music notations. On the other hand, those style-of-rendition icons corresponding to articulation styles that can not be expressed by the existing music notations may be represented by any suitable figures which could allow the user to readily image the articulation in question.
In the present invention, it is preferable that the musical score of the music piece be displayed in the most popular xe2x80x9cstaffxe2x80x9d notation which is very easy for every user to utilize; however, the musical score may be displayed in any other suitable notation than the xe2x80x9cstaffxe2x80x9d notation as long as the notation used can appropriately show a note or performance progression of the music piece. For example, a combination of pictorial representation of notes and literal representation of note names, a combination of literal representation of note lengths and pictorial representation of notes, or a combination of bar graph representation of note lengths and other corresponding note representation may be visually displayed in a time series. Namely, in the present invention, the xe2x80x9cmusical scorexe2x80x9d may be in any other suitable notation than the xe2x80x9cstaffxe2x80x9d notation as long as the notation used can appropriately show a note or performance progression of the music piece.
The processor is further adapted to impart style-of-rendition parameters, corresponding to each style-of-rendition icon pasted on the musical score, to original performance data corresponding to the musical score, and thus the use of the style-of-rendition parameters allows a music performance to be executed in a style of rendition corresponding to the pasted style-of-rendition icon. Namely, the style-of-rendition icons are appropriately associated with sets of the style-of-rendition parameters, so that performance data, i.e., tonal characteristics of a note, corresponding to the pasted location of each style-of-rendition icon is set or controlled, in accordance with the style-of-rendition parameters corresponding to the pasted style-of-rendition icon on the musical score, to thereby achieve a performance in the style of rendition corresponding to the pasted icon. The style-of-rendition parameters may be time-serial tone parameters obtained by analyzing a waveform of an actual performance tone of a musical instrument. The time-serial tone parameters contain a plurality of musical factors, such as a waveform factor unique to the style of rendition used for the instrument""s tone color, a pitch factor, an amplitude factor, and a tone color (timbre) control factor.
In order to place a desired style-of-rendition icon in a selectable condition in response to an operation of the operator device, the processor may be further adapted to accept selection of a musical instrument and show, on the display, a set of available style-of-rendition icons for the selected musical instrument, so that the user is allowed to select a desired one of the available style-of-rendition icons visually shown on the display. In this manner, it is possible to readily select a style-of-rendition icon suited for the selected musical instrument (or tone color).
In imparting various articulation to the original music-piece note data, the present invention can synthesize any desired articulation with high quality and enhanced efficiency through very simple operations of pre-registering various articulation styles in the form of icons and pasting the pre-registered icons on a musical score of the original music-piece note data visually shown on the display.
With the arrangement that one style-of-rendition icon is shared, for identical or similar articulation, among a plurality of musical instruments, the present invention can substantially facilitate the user operation of the style-of-rendition icons to enter and set the articulation to the original music-piece note data and thereby achieves an improved operating efficiency. Further, even when a style-of-rendition icon shared among a plurality of musical instruments is pasted, the present invention can impart articulation, unique to each of the sharing musical instruments of individual parts, to the original music-piece note data in an actual performance, so that high-quality performance expression is achieved by the present invention.
Furthermore, because the performance data corresponding to each pasted style-of-rendition icon are stored in memory using data identifying the icon, i.e., a unique icon number, the necessary procedures for storing the performance data can be significantly simplified. In addition, because only the style-of-rendition icons representative of applicable articulation data are visually displayed in correspondence with the musical instrument of the part to which it is to be pastedxe2x80x94without any other icons than the style-of-rendition icons to be used for the musical instrument being displayed at allxe2x80x94, it is possible to efficiently impart articulation suited for the musical instrument to be played.
A style-of-rendition inputting apparatus according to another aspect of the present invention comprises a display, an operator device, and a processor coupled with the display and the operator device, where the processor is adapted to: show a musical score of a given music piece on the display; set at least one row of style-of-rendition display areas in parallel relation to a musical score display area on the display; select a desired style-of-rendition icon in response to an operation of the operator device and designate a desired icon pasting location on the musical score; and show the selected style-of-rendition icon in the style-of-rendition display area on the display in corresponding relation to the designated icon pasting location. With such arrangements, the present invention can effectively display the style-of-rendition icon pasted to each desired performance progression location of an original music piece. The processor may be adapted to set a plurality rows of the style-of-rendition display areas in parallel relation to the musical score display area on the display, so that when a plurality of different style-of-rendition icons are to be pasted to a same location on the musical score, the style-of-rendition icons can be shown in the respective style-of-rendition display areas. Thus, the present invention greatly facilitates pasting of two or more style-of-rendition icons onto one and the same location of the musical score, thereby effectively facilitating control to impart high-quality articulation. The above-mentioned xe2x80x9cplurality rows of the style-of-rendition display areasxe2x80x9d are also referred to simply as xe2x80x9clayersxe2x80x9d in the later-described preferred embodiment.
Because a plurality of the layers are provided on the display in parallel relation to the original music-piece data display area, the style-of-rendition icons are classified in advance into groups representative of similar articulation styles (styles of rendition) and specific similar style-of-rendition icons are pasted to and displayed in each of the layers, in response to a user selection of any one of the style-of-rendition icons on the basis of the classification, the present invention allows the user to readily identify the current articulation settings.
Further, with the arrangements that the original music-piece data display area and icon pasting areas are provided on the displayed screen and such articulation styles capable of being expressed by the traditional music notations are displayed along with the original music-piece data in the original music-piece data display area while articulation styles unique to the musical instrument to be performed are displayed as style-of-rendition icons in the icon pasting areas, the present invention allows the user to readily identify and ascertain each articulation style being currently set.
A style-of-rendition inputting apparatus in accordance with still another aspect of the present invention comprises a display, an operator device, and a processor coupled with the display and the operator device, where the processor is adapted to: show a musical score of a given music piece on the display; cause a given style-of-rendition icon to be pasted to and shown at a given performance location on the musical score shown on the display; and use the operator device to designate the style-of-rendition icon pasted to the given performance location on the musical score, to edit style-of-rendition information corresponding to the designated style-of-rendition icon. With such arrangements, the present invention can easily perform control to modify any selected articulation. In this invention, the processor may edit the style-of-rendition information by modifying the figure (including the size) of the style-of-rendition icon pasted on the musical score visually shown on the display.
According to the present invention, each of the style-of-rendition icons can be modified in its figure (including the size) typically in either or both of the horizontal and vertical directions. Specifically, the articulation data may be adjusted in the time-axial direction by the horizontal modification of the style-of-rendition icon, the effectiveness or depth of the articulation data may be adjusted by the vertical modification of the style-of-rendition icon, or the time-axial and depth adjustments may be made by simultaneously effecting the horizontal and vertical modifications of the style-of-rendition icon.
Further, according to the present invention, the degree of each articulation to be imparted to the original music piece data can be controlled finely and as desired by modifying the figure of the style-of-rendition icon having been pasted to the original music piece data on the display screen, with the result that high-quality articulation can be provided with increased efficiency. Normally, a plurality of style-of-rendition icons are displayed as xe2x80x9ccandidatexe2x80x9d icons for each type of articulation so that the user can select a desired one of the displayed style-of-rendition icons. In case articulation of a desired degree can not be obtained, interpolation can be readily made between the respective sizes of the candidate icons through the style-of-rendition icon modification scheme of the present invention.
The style-of-rendition icon modification can be made in a very simple manner by, as noted above, modifying the figure of the style-of-rendition icon in question in either or both of the horizontal and vertical directions. The articulation data, i.e., style-of-rendition parameters, can be adjusted in the time-axial direction by the horizontal modification of the style-of-rendition icon, the effectiveness or depth of the articulation data (i.e., style-of-rendition parameters) can be adjusted by the vertical modification of the style-of-rendition icon, and these time-axial and depth adjustments can be made by simultaneously effecting the horizontal and vertical modifications of the style-of-rendition icon. Thus, the present invention can effectively control articulation characteristics through the icon modification.
The present invention may be constructed and implemented not only as the above-mentioned apparatus invention but also as a method invention. The method may be arranged and implemented as a program for execution by a computer, microprocessor or the like, as well as a machine-readable storage medium storing such a program. Further, the hardware implementing the present invention may comprise a combination of logic circuitry and gate array or a functionally-fixed hardware device including an integrated circuit, without being necessarily limited to a programmable facility such as a computer or microprocessor. Stated differently, the processor in the present invention may be a non-programable processor or control unit only having fixed processing functions, not to mention a programmable processor such as a computer or microprocessor. Further, the style-of-rendition inputting apparatus or electronic music apparatus embodying the present invention may be of any other type than an electronic musical instrument, such as an automatic performance sequencer, automatic music composing apparatus or a personal computer so programmed as to be capable of music performance. Moreover, the style-of-rendition inputting apparatus or electronic music apparatus of the present invention may be a karaoke apparatus, game apparatus, cellular phone or any other type of multimedia equipment. Further, the electronic musical instrument of the present invention may be of any other type than the keyboard-based instrument.